Street Light Installation and Maintenance

Street lighting stock should be tested, identified, and investigated by experienced lighting maintenance personnel to test, identify, and investigate any inherent problems with the lighting installation. Any equipment used to test street lighting cabling, columns, and the overall network must be calibrated and appropriate for the task.

In the United Kingdom Standards, street lighting columns are typically made of steel and are susceptible to sudden failure. Regular structural inspection of lighting equipment should be performed as part of the general maintenance task. A visual inspection should be performed once a year, with structural tests performed at regular intervals. There are numerous structural testing companies that can perform a variety of physical or non-destructive tests. Work should be scheduled independently of other scheduled and cyclic maintenance regimes.

Luminaires for street lighting should be cleaned on a regular basis. Cleaning the lantern bowls and overall housing unit every three to four years is recommended by industry practice. A regular clean helps to ensure that the lighting unit performs optimally and meets the British Standard lighting class that the lantern was originally installed to achieve.

There are generally two main strategies for replacing discharge lighting, which are as follows:

• After total and complete failure, lamps are burned to extinction and replaced.
• A lamp replacement program in which street lighting units (lamps) in a specific area are replaced over a set period of time.